The Calling
by kaz456
Summary: A current situation captures the attention of the Animorphs while they are still in the midst of a problem concerning Tobias. Rachel POV, set near 33 of the series.
1. Chapter 1

AN: For some reason kind of hates me, so currently all thought-speak is indicated with quotation marks and underlines. (Sorry, it's the only kind of speech indication that would allow me to have.) Thanks for understanding.

* * *

My name is Rachel.

And I was about to collapse, cry, or kill someone.

The first two options were completely out of character for me. I don't collapse, or cave in, or give up. That's just not me.

And I definitely don't cry. I'm Racheland that's just part of what goes with being me. I don't show signs of vulnerability

But the last one? Well, that's something I do pretty often.

Before you get all paranoid, don't worry. I'm not some psycho murderer. Or, at least, I hope I'm not.

What I am is a teenage girl. A teenage girl with the power to morph into any animal she wishes, but only so that she can participate in an inter-galactic war in an effort to save the planet Earth.

Yes, I'm serious.

Here's the truth for all you people who don't know what's going on. And honestly, I'd prefer that you didn't know what was going on, because if you do, than that means that you're a part of it in the worst way.

I'll give you the Spark notes version of it all: Earth is under attack by a bunch of parasitic slugs (lead by the main slug honcho named Visser Three) that wrap themselves around human's brains and make those host humans what we call Controllers. My five friends and I are the world's only defense against these aliens, called Yeerks. We fight them by using the morphing power, invented by the Andalites (another group of aliens) and given to us by a dying Andalite prince.

He did give us a warning, though. The morphing power is a blessing and a curse. You can't stay in morph for more than two hours, or else you'll get stuck in morph, and become what the Andalites call a _nothlit. _One of our group, Tobias, knows this firsthand. In one of our first battles, Tobias got trapped in the form of a red-tailed hawk. He only later received the power to morph after doing a favor for the Ellimist, who I'll tell you about later.

So now, we fight. "We" is all six of us: Tobias, who I already mentioned. Jake, my cousin and out unofficial leader. Cassie, my best friend, our local animal expert, and the necessary peacemaker in our group. Marco, Jake's best friend, who usually wastes our time by telling stupid jokes, but on rare occasions can be extremely intelligent. Aximili, who we call Ax, the brother of the Andalite who gave us the morphing power. He joined us a little later in the battle. And then there's me, the local adrenaline junkie.

We're aided by the Chee, a group of age-old, dog-like, almost robotic creatures with the power to generate holograms around themselves. Sometimes, when he feels like it, we get the help of the Ellimist, the guy who gave Tobias his morphing power back. There's pretty much no way to describe him other than a seemingly all-powerful guy who tries to monitor the universe.

But mostly, we fight by ourselves.

That's what we had done last night: we had fought.

I won't lie; usually I like to fight. I like the thrill and the rush and the incredible sense of power that comes with being a Grizzly bear and being able to knock someone out so easily. You could even say that I love it. Out of all my friends, I'm the one who's always ready to go into battle.

But not after last night.

"Rachel. Rachel! Rachel, are you paying attention?" My math teacher interrupted my thoughts and peered into my face, looking a little pissed off.

"Yes, ma'am, I am," I told her, but even I could hear the attitude in my voice. To tell the truth, I didn't care. I was too tired, too stressed, and too worried, to care.

Apparently, she felt the same way. "Rachel," she said tiredly, and I sighed. "I am not in the mood for your attitude. If you aren't going to be respectful, then you can just get out of my classroom."

The whole class knew what was coming.

"Okay," I told her. I threw my books into my backpack, slung it over my shoulder, and walked out. From the glimpse I caught of my teacher's face, she didn't look too disappointed. Or too surprised.

It's just the sort of thing people expect from me. And I guess, with time, it's come to be what I expect of myself.

The hallway was empty for once, and I was glad. I really just needed some quiet to think over my thoughts.

"Hey, Rachel! RACHEL!"

Obviously, I wasn't going to be getting quiet anytime soon.

Marco jogged up to me, wide grin on his face. "Hey Rachel, how you doing?"

I leaned on a locker and glared at him. "Not in the mood, Marco."

He shrugged. "Funny; neither am I. Why aren't you in class?"

"Got kicked out." He shook his head amusedly. "Well, why aren't you in class?" I shot back at him defensively.

He waved his hall pass in front of my face, and then leaned against the lockers next to me and slammed an open locker's door shut. The sound echoed throughout the empty corridor.

We were silent for a moment, both thinking about the same thing. Some girl walked by us, gave us a strange look, and kept on walking after I glared at her.

"We'll find him," Marco said quietly. "Or he'll find us. If anybody knows their way around, it's him."

"Yeah," I whispered. "It's just, you know, last time –"

"We'll find him, Rachel," Marco repeated, but his voice sounded shaky, like he was trying to convince himself.

"You should go back to class," I told him firmly. I didn't want to break down in front of him. He nodded and left.

I closed my eyes for a second and remembered last night…

_"Everybody out!" Jake shouted. _

_Nobody complained, not even me. We were outnumbered big time. The endless hordes of Hork-Bajir weren't stopping, and as if that wasn't enough, we could still hear the tortured screams of humans as they were about to be re-infested by Yeerks. _

_This was why we hated the Yeerk Pool._

_"This place is a living hell," Cassie muttered uncharacteristically. She was in wolf morph, missing an ear, and limping on three legs. _

_We ran up the steps of the Yeerk Pool. We could hear Visser Three shouting for all the exits of the pool to be shut._

_As we approached the exit, we realized with horror that it was blocked by a beam of wood that we had knocked down earlier. _

_"Damn it," Jake cursed, before turning to Ax and me. We need a door, he said tersely. And fast. _

_Ax looked at me, and I nodded my shaggy bear head. His quick-as-lightning Andalite tail cut open a few slits in the wall, and my huge bear body plowed through. We were out in the middle of a dark alley, running, demorphing, and morphing back to birds as fast as we could. _

_Soon we were in Cassie's barn, back to being normal kids and a normal Andalite. All of us. Except…_

"_Where's Tobias?" I asked suddenly. Cassie glanced up from the animals she was checking on, Jake opened his eyes from being sprawled on the floor, Marco sat up from the bale of hay he was on, and Ax turned all four of his eyes on me intently. _

"_Where's Tobias?" I repeated. _

_Silence. I watched as Jake's eyes slowly moved up to the empty rafter that Tobias usually perched on. He turned quickly to look at Ax. "Wasn't he with you during the battle?"_

_Ax shook his head." No, Prince Jake." _

_Jake didn't even tell him not to call him Prince. He frantically turned to Marco, Cassie, and I. "None of you saw him?"_

_We all shook our heads. _

_There was a moment of silence._

_Then, as if on cue, all five of us sprinted outside of the barn. "TOBIAS!" Jake shouted. _

_No answer. _

_Jake turned slowly to look at first Marco, then Cassie, then Ax, and lastly me. His eyes held a look of fear that was mirrored in our eyes. _

"_We're screwed," he whispered. _

I opened my eyes and was greeted with the grey door of the bleak bathroom stall. "Yeah," I whispered to myself. "We are."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hey guys. Thanks for reading. To be honest, this is kind of an attempt to push myself back into the writing world, so I really appreciate all the reviews and look forward to lots of critiques. Thanks again for reading! **

**Oh, and also... ( >) stands for thoughtspeak. **

Flash forward six hours.

Friday night, and I was the only one home. I had just ordered Chinese food. It seemed pretty pathetic, the idea that I was teenage girl spending my Friday night sitting at home, eating Chinese food, and watching a movie.

But the way I saw it, it was a better alternative than being in the Yeerk Pool.

I scowled to myself. Was I turning into some kind of coward or something? Was I becoming afraid to fight? Was I turning into some kind of Cassie?

That couldn't be possible. Because, see, my friends depend on me to be the bravely stupid one. They need me to be the one who says "Let's do it!" They need me to be the one who always rushes into battle without considering the consequences. They needed me to be like that.

Or… was it _me_ who needed me to be like that?

I shook my head. I'm not Cassie; I'm not the deep one who thinks about things a lot. It's just, lately, I've been kind of…I don't know.

I sat down on the couch and turned the TV on to _Saving Private Ryan _to try to get my mind off of things. It didn't work. I couldn't stop myself from thinking that I should be doing something, anything, to help find Tobias.

But according to Jake, I wasn't supposed to. He had called an unofficial search for Tobias. Being Jake, he placed all the blame on himself. So he hadn't told anyone that they had to help search for him; he'd just said that he was going to search for him. Everyone else had volunteered.

But really, we all felt guilty and shaken and scared, for so many reasons. First, because it was Tobias. Whether he liked it or not, he was already so vulnerable. Too much had happened to him, and he'd still persevered. Someday he, like each and every one of us, was going to break. And we all knew that we had to be there for him, and for each other, when we did.

But then, secondly, because it was a dose of reality for all of us. We've fought this war so much that we're almost completely desensitized to the idea of killing Hork-Bajir and Yeerks and Taxxons. It seems like impossible odds, but even after all this time, we're still alive. The thought that Tobias might be… or might _not_ be…

I had been the first to volunteer. And I had been the first one that Jake shot down. He had taken one look at me and said, "No, Rachel. You're not in the right frame of mind. Go home, get some sleep, and you can join us in searching tomorrow."

I was pretty ticked at Jake. More like infuriated. More like ready to punch him out on the spot. What right did he have to tell me what to do? What made him, and what made all of them, think that they could tell me whether I could do something?

Jake _was _our unofficial leader. Like it or not, I was supposed to follow his orders.

But since when had I ever played by the rules? Screw Jake's orders.

I jogged up the stairs into my room, and closed the door tight. Stripped off my clothes until I was in my morphing suit. Opened the window, took a quick glance out of it to make sure no one down below was watching.

A minute later, I was an owl soaring through the night sky.

Where to go? The most obvious solution seemed Tobias' meadow, so I headed there.

Okay, I'll admit something. I like Tobias, and maybe a little more than that. I care for him. It's taken me a long time to admit that, but it's true. If I hadn't believed that before, then this was proof of it now: I was going against Jake's orders, leaving my house as well as what could have been a restful evening, and flying through the town on too-little sleep and too-much adrenaline, looking for him.

Maybe I cared for him a little bit more than I was willing to admit.

I looked around with my excellent owl eyes. I could see everything, from the tiny mice scampering around to the blades of grass moving with the gentle wind. The only thing I couldn't see was a certain Red-Tailed Hawk.

( Tobias, where are you?>) I cried out in frustration.

( Rachel? Is that you?>) Another owl flapped towards me. Ax.

( Yeah.>)

( Rachel, Prince Jake told you not to come here!>) Ax sounded shocked that I was disobeying Jake. Big deal, he's my cousin.

( Yeah, well. This is _Tobias_ we're talking about.>) I figured that if anyone would identify with me, Ax would. He and Tobias were best friends, what the Andalites called _shorm. _And if Ax didn't understand, maybe he would hear the pleading tone that I hadn't managed to keep completely out of my voice.

( Yes. I understand.>) Ax's tone softened, but he kept talking. ( However, I believe that Tobias would not like to see you like this, Rachel.>)

( Like what?>) Ax didn't even reply to that. The answer was obvious: I was exhausted, high-strung, not thinking clearly, and in the mood to do something dangerously idiotic. Not at all a good combination, especially with me.

( Rachel, go home,>) Ax said resolutely. I've almost never heard Ax command anyone else around, but it wasn't enough to convince me.

( Like hell I will,>) I told him, and veered away. I could hear Ax sigh in thought-speak, but I ignored it.

The problem was that no one else understood how important this was to me. But then again, maybe they did…maybe that was why everyone kept telling me to go home and relax. Maybe they really were worried about me.

At the time, when you're in a mood like the one I was in, you don't want to consider any other options. Or maybe you just can't. Maybe it's kind of a method of self-preservation: pushing away all thoughts that don't relate to the goal.

Maybe that's just my method of self-preservation.

I flew towards Tobias' tree and almost collided with another owl. I hadn't been paying attention to what I'd been doing.

( Rachel!>) Cassie cried out as she turned sharply to avoid hitting me. How she knew it was me, I had no idea. But then again, this was Cassie. ( Rachel, you're not supposed to be here!>)

( I've heard. Sorry, but I really don't care.>)

( Rachel,>) Cassie said kindly. ( It's okay. Do yourself a favor and go get some sleep.>)

Cassie just has this feeling, this aura around her that makes you think that whatever she's saying she's only saying because she genuinely cares about _you._ At that moment,  
I knew that Cassie and Ax and Jake were right. I really was too screwed up to deal with all of this.

At home, sitting on my couch, I wondered if I was crazy. If Marco, or maybe any of my friends, had heard that, they probably would have either laughed or been shocked. I mean, I've said it before. I'm _Rachel. _I don't have doubts.

But then again, I'm also a teenage girl. A vulnerable, insecure, teenage girl.

And hungry. I was also a really hungry teenage girl.

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. My Chinese food. About time.

I grabbed the money on the counter that my mom had left for me, and jogged towards the door. I swung open the door and –

"_Tobias?" _

My mouth dropped, and so did the twenty dollar bill.

_Tobias was standing outside my front door._

He bent down and picked up the money, held it out to me.

A flood of emotions rushed through me. Too many to count, let alone to name. But the most prevalent emotion was…anger.

"Where the hell have you been!" I shouted at him. "Do you have any idea how much we've been looking for you? Do you have any idea how worried we've been? How worried_ I've_ been? _Where the hell have you been?" _

He looked overwhelmed. "Rachel… I..."

I was so mad that I couldn't say anything more. I wanted to hit him, I wanted to hug him, I wanted to punch him, I wanted to kiss him.

I didn't do any of those though. Instead, I opened the door wider so that he could come in. I turned to shut it and heard a guy's voice shouting, "Hey, wait!"

It was the Chinese delivery guy. I yanked the money out of Tobias' hand, thrust it into the delivery guy's arms, and snatched my food. "Thanks," I growled as I slammed the face. The glimpse I caught of him was a bewildered expression.

I turned around and saw a ghost of a smile on Tobias' face, but I was too pissed off to care. I opened my mouth to yell at him again.

But just as suddenly as the anger had come, it disappeared. Because we were alone, facing each other, he was in human morph, and most of all, he was _alive_.

I kissed him.

I swear, for a few moments it was pure bliss. I probably could have stood there forever, my arms wrapped around his neck and his gently around my waist, kissing him like there was no tomorrow.

But he broke the kiss and pulled away. Dropped his hands from my waist, took a step back. Looked up at the ceiling, and the floor, and finally, looked me straight in the eyes. "Rachel," he started, then faltered.

"What?" I whispered.

"Rachel," He said, strong and steadily. But then his voice trembled as he said his next words. "Rachel, I'm trapped in human morph."


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: I've had this chapter written for awhile, but I haven't posted it because it bothers me. There's something about it that doesn't feel right, and I haven't been able to identify just what that thing is. So please review and tell me what you think of this. Thanks, guys!  
**

What?

"What?" I said out loud. I took a step back, just because all of a sudden the intensity between us was too strong. Had he really said that?

"You're human? What? How? Tobias, what happened?"

"Same thing as last time." His face and voice were emotionless. He sounded dead. "Yeerk pool, and I couldn't get out in time. We came in as human, and there was no way I could morph back with all of them on the lookout after you guys escaped. I had to pretend to be a controller and blend in with a group. I'm lucky I got out at all." He looked up at the ceiling again. "Yeah," he muttered. "Lucky."

I heard him, but I wasn't really hearing. Tobias was human. If I looked hard enough, I could see the pain there on his face. I could see the frustration, the self-reproach, and just how lost he felt. I could see how mad he was at himself for getting trapped again. I could see all of that, just in his eyes.

It made me want to cry.

But at the same time, it made me feel…relieved. I wouldn't have to worry about Tobias sleeping all alone in the woods anymore. I wouldn't have to worry about the psychological strain put on him by this war. I wouldn't have to worry about how he was coping, being trapped in the body of a hawk.

And I was also…strangely glad. It was selfish, I know, but I couldn't help but think of how I wouldn't have to worry about a two-hour time limit when Tobias and I were on our rare dates. Tobias was _human._

I could see with clarity how much this devastated Tobias.

But could he see how much it delighted me?

He was still looking at me, I realized. He was waiting for a response, an answer. Anything.

I didn't know what I could say without giving away how I felt. No matter how I felt, the important person right now was Tobias. That's what I had to keep reminding myself.

I guess the fact that I had to consciously remind myself of that proves that I'm not a very nice person.

"It'll be okay," I said lamely. He looked away, and I looked down, both of us aware of how the bond between us had just been broken by my pathetic attempt at a lie to make him feel better.

"Everyone else is looking for you," I tried again. "We've been worried…" This wasn't working. Tobias wasn't even paying attention to me anymore. He was lost in his own little messed-up world of depression where all the blame fell on him. I had to snap him out of it.

"You want some Chinese food?" I blurted out. No answer. "Tobias?" I reached out and gently grabbed his arm.

The reaction was instantaneous. He pulled back immediately, frightened. "Do you want some food?" I repeated. He stared at me for a second, his eyes blank. He looked uncomfortable. I realized that I was still holding him and embarrassedly dropped my arm. The tension in the room was unbearable.

What was I supposed to do? I've said this before, but I'm not Cassie. Why had Tobias come to me?

Somehow, I was pretty sure of the answer.

I know I'm strong. And I know that I give others extra strength. But with Tobias, I thought that it was a little more than that.

There was an awkward silence in the room. The air felt thick and heavy and uncomfortable. Both of us were glancing around, at the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the Chinese food, at everywhere and everything other than each other.

Facing each other meant facing the truth.

The phone rang and cut through the air. I reached for it, but it was as if my body was on auto-pilot; I felt like I was a million miles away from the room and the phone.

"Hello?" I asked monotonously.

"Rachel?" It was Cassie, sounding worried. Typical Cassie. "Hey, Rachel, it's me. I'm just checking to see that you're alright."

Alright? Was I alright? I glanced at Tobias before I said my next words.

"Yeah, everything's alright. How did the scavenger hunt go for all of you?" After months of practice, talking on the phone in code had become pretty easy.

"Not bad. Toby didn't show up, though." Cassie somehow managed to use a nonchalant, conversational, tone. I swear, that girl should be an actress.

"Yeah, well…Toby's here," I blurted out.

Cassie was silent for a minute. "What!" She almost yelled. She lowered her voice, and said it again, this time calmly. "What?"

"I said, Toby's here. He…couldn't find where the scavenger hunt was, so he came here. He's actually here beside me right now."

"What? He is? Is he okay?" Cassie asked frantically, pretty much dropping our cover.

"He's…he's…well, he's here," I finished hesitantly. "Hey, Cassie, could you do me a favor and spread the news to everyone else? Oh, and it'd be great if we could all work on that project together in your barn at about nine tomorrow morning."

"Sure," Cassie said carefully. She knew something was wrong by my tone of voice. "Tell Toby I say hi and I'm glad that he was able to find your house."

"I will. Bye." I hung up the phone quietly, then turned to Tobias. "That was Cassie," I said. "She says hi and that she's glad that you're alright."

He nodded. It struck me that Tobias really wasn't alright. And then we were back to the same state we had been in before: uncomfortable silence. I decided to break it.

"Tobias, what are we going to do?"

He seemed surprised that I had used "we." But the way I saw it, we were all in this together. "I don't know," he admitted. By hearing and answering my question, he seemed to come back to the real world. "Where's your family?"

"Out for the weekend," I responded. "So you can stay here."

"Thanks," he said.

Everything felt so surreal, and so wrong.

"And I have some of Jake's clothes that should probably fit you. And…tomorrow we have to go to a meeting and tell the others. About this, I mean." There. I had said it. It hadn't been as hard as I thought it would be.

He nodded slowly. "It hasn't really hit me yet," He said quietly. He closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the wall. "This sucks." It was a completely out of character thing for him to say, but it fit the mood.

All I could do was agree halfheartedly with him, all the while knowing that in my heart I meant the exact opposite. "Yeah, it does."


End file.
